


Going Up in Flames

by Anonymous



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon - Anime, First Kiss, Fluff, Incest, Introspection, M/M, POV First Person, Possessive Behavior, Sibling Incest, Stream of Consciousness, metaphorically burning down the past, set after noah's arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Mokuba is tired of clinging to the past and paves the way for their future.
Relationships: Kaiba Mokuba/Kaiba Seto
Kudos: 15
Collections: Anonymous, RelationShipping 2020





	Going Up in Flames

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LuciferxDamien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuciferxDamien/gifts).



> I hope first person POV was okay, the fic ended up there and I just rolled with it.

Once I wished he would change back, become the boy he used to be again. I wished his smile would be as soft and radiant as it used to be.

But things don’t change back. And he will never be the boy he used to be. He will never smile as openly as he once did.

And I’ve long since realized that I don’t care, that I like the way he is now.

I don’t mind that everyone calls him a cold-hearted bastard, because I know he isn’t. He is passion and fury and blinding white light. Pure Energy. Power. Heat. And I love it, like I once loved that soft warm smile on his face. His smile is now hard and cruel, only softened when he looks at me, his laughter has an edge to insanity. But I know there is so much more behind it. I know who he really is, even if he hasn’t figured it out for himself.

That’s why I retrieve the locket from his neck, my eyes never leaving his, waiting for any reaction. He just watches me with one eyebrow raised, waiting for my move. I pick my picture out of his locket and then I do the same with his picture in my locket.

The pictures make me remember the events in Noah's world clearly. The painful recording of our past, the painful feeling that shot through me when I wished he would be the smiling boy in that memory. And I remember how his hand kept me from falling into an endless black abyss; a fitting metaphor for our relationship. Because this is what it is all about: keeping each other from falling.

I know without me he would stumble and fall and never recover. He would go insane without me, losing his humanity and his strength. It’s not that I’d be better without him. I know he is the one who keeps my smile and my tears and my hope. Without him everything would crumble to dust. The first time when I became actively aware of it was as well in Noah's world. The moment when we talked on the cliff. He told me that he wasn’t proud of all the things he had done. Behind his words were so many different layers of meaning and I managed to catch them. He wasn’t proud of all the things that had happened, but I wasn’t one of them. He didn’t regret all the things he had to do to keep me safe. There was something else as well, another meaning. Although he regretted some of the things that had happened in the past, he wouldn’t change them, even if he could.

And I neither would I.

That’s why I decided to take our photos and put them together without a last glance at our smiling faces. That’s why I bought the lighter.

In Noah’s world I learned something else as well. Noah showed me the reason why Seto had once pushed me to the ground and accused me of treason. Lector said that Seto was always using people for his advantage, always playing them like chess figures - including the one person he supposedly loved most. Neither of them understood what Seto had done in that moment. But I did. He wasn’t using me, he was protecting me. But of course they thought he was just playing me, like everyone else, because he knew I wouldn’t leave him no matter how bad he treated me. Well of course they did think this, it was what he wanted to let them believe.

He isn’t one of the best duelists for nothing. He knows how to play his hand and in that moment he wasn’t playing me.

He put me in a win-win situation; at least in his opinion. If I decided to stay at his side we could beat Gozaburo in his game. But if I had decided otherwise, against my own brother, Gozaburo would have only sent Seto back to the orphanage.

I think there was just one flaw in Setos plan: I can’t live without him.

This was the day when our lives truly changed. Before Noah's world I thought it was the day when we were adopted. But I was wrong. The day our lives truly changed was the day when we took over Kaiba Corp.

We brought down an empire and out of the ruins we built our own world.

Sometimes I have to laugh when I remember all those people Yugi and his friends and us duel on the regular these days, who try to take over the world with some magic artefacts. They want to change the world back to the times when Kings and Pharaohs ruled, when magic was more than just a word.

Too bad for them you can’t turn back time.

What counts today is more than the voice of one person or a few privileged people. Magic was replaced by technology and if there is an epitome of technology then it is Kaiba Corp.

Those people want back the past, because they were raised by the belief that the past is of ultimate importance. But today everything is about the future and if you search for an epitome for this you find it in Kaiba Corp as well.

They think that the world can be controlled and rescued by only one person or hero. But the present isn’t about heroes and villains, it is about hope.

And if there is something that stands for hope then it must be Kaiba Corp as well. This and the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, because it is the symbol of the corporation we created - our symbol.

If I believe in anything, I believe in that. Because how can it not be this way? I am old enough to understand some things in life. I know what Kaiba Corp stood for in the past and what the reaction to the name was. It used to stand for war, destruction and hate.

But when I look around now I see nothing like this. When I see the reactions of the children in Kaiba Land to the name, I know what it truly means. There is excitement, new ideas and  _ hope. _ That’s what the name Kaiba means today.

It’s the reason why I don’t want to change things back. Maybe it would give Seto back his smile, but it would steal it from so many other children. It would steal my smile away, and after all we have gone through this is what Seto was trying to protect his entire life. It’s not a fake smile I wear, but nevertheless I wear it for him and because of him.

Changing the past would only result in me losing what keeps him going. I am proud of the man he is today, no matter how cold he seems to be. Because after all I know who he is.

He is what he had always admired the most. He is like one of his Blue-Eyes White Dragons.

This is why I pull out the lighter. My eyes never leave his, even as he grabs the edge of his desk. For a moment I fear he is going to stop me, but he doesn’t.

He just watches me.

He has changed a lot, I don’t think there is anything left of the smiling boy from the orphanage I see in the faded photo.

I couldn’t give a damn about it. For me he is so much more than the boy in the picture ever was.

I am not the little boy in the picture either. I have changed as well. 

I believe in my brother so much more than the boy in the picture, not because I don’t know better, but because I do. I choose to believe his words because he has never broken his promises to me. I am not hiding behind his back anymore, unable to make my own decisions. I am the vice president of Kaiba Corp and it's not just a shallow title, I do have a responsibility. I make my own decisions now and I decided to stay at his side, come what may. I don’t cry anymore like the little boy in the picture because I feel helpless. I know I am not, I know I have power, especially over Seto. I cry because I want to and because I know he can’t do it anymore.

No, I am nothing like the little boy in the picture who followed his brother because he had no other choice.

I follow him because I can choose to.

I am not Mokie anymore and he isn’t the smiling boy called Seto anymore.

I am Mokuba Kaiba and he is Seto Kaiba.

That’s why I burn the photos in my hand and erase the last reminder of the past that isn’t truly ours anymore. I watch as the smiling boy burns to ashes in a blue flame. When the last remains of the pictures fall to the floor I pull out two small chips from my pocket and put them in our lockets. They connect with the material just as I had designed them to, and with a whirl of pixels and light the pictures on them flicker to life. A hologram of me in jeans and the yellow vest, smiling mischievously and one of him in his favourite white trench coat wearing his famous smirks.

I look up into his eyes and I see fascination burning in them. I know he understands what I am doing. 

When I lean forward to put the locket around his neck, he still watches me. When I lean in even more to press my lips to his, he doesn’t draw away. He freezes for a second before letting himself melt, before letting me burn down the last vestiges of our past, of our childhood, our blood connection, and replace it with something new. Something just as fierce.

The ashes of the old pictures and our past lie forgotten on the floor.

Once upon a time I learned that out of the ashes of the old, something new and better arises. After all I saw a White Dragon rise out of the ashes of the past.


End file.
